Rasheed Sulaimon is congrtatulated by his Duke teammates after two of his career-high 27 points Sunday

DURHAM – There were any numbers of built-in excuses for the way Duke played in its one-point escape at Boston College two weeks ago.

The snow. The cold. The day-of-the-game travel. You name it, it was there.

But the Blue Devils didn’t fall back on any of them. And when they got another shot at the Eagles on Sunday, this time at Cameron Indoor Stadium, they were much more ready to play.

“Duke, in their prep for the game, they respected us,” BC coach Steve Donahue said. “I felt they weren’t going to let what happened at our place happen again.”

They didn’t.

This time the Blue Devils put the hammer down early and often against the young Eagles.

They got big offensive performances from freshman Rasheed Sulaimon and senior Mason Plumlee while putting the defensive clamps on BC’s talented freshman backcourt of Olivier Hanlan and Joe Rahon, in an 89-68 victory that served warning to the rest of the ACC that coach Mike Krzyzewski’s sixth-ranked team is starting to pick up a head of steam toward the postseason.

That, after all, is where the championships most people remember are decided – which is why Krzyzewski seems so disinterested in the regular season standings, even after Miami’s stunning loss at Wake Forest on Saturday.

“We’re not paying attention to the conference race,” college basketball’s winningest coach said. “We’re not paying attention to seeds. The only thing we’re paying attention to is the next game.

“We’re running our own race. It’s been a good one and we’re going to try to keep doing it, but we’re not going to compare it to anyone else’s race, including past Duke teams. This is our race and we’re going to try to be focused on that.”

The Blue Devils (24-3, 11-3 ACC) were plenty focused Sunday.

Whether it was the memory of that near-defeat in Chestnut Hill or simply the product of the steady growth it has showed since a 27-point beatdown in Miami on Jan. 23, Duke played one of its most complete games since starting forward Ryan Kelly was sidelined by a foot injury on Jan. 8.

Five players scored in double figures. Seven contributed at least one assist while helping their team shoot nearly 54 percent for the game – including a blistering 62.1 percent in the first half.

Not only are they getting the usual contributions from mainstays such as Plumlee, who finished with 19 points and 15 rebounds while going 11 of 15 from the free throw line, they’re also getting deeper, more significant help from other sources.

On this particular day, Sulaimon stated his case for ACC Rookie of the Year while scoring a career-high 27 points while his rapidly improving classmate Amile Jefferson pitched in with a career-high 14. Included in that total were three three-point plays in which the slender 6-foot-8 freshman finished strong around the basket despite getting fouled.

“These last two games, this is probably the most fun we’ve had playing in a long time,” Plumlee said of Sunday’s win and a 28-point road rout of Virginia Tech last Thursday. “I don’t know how many assists we’ve had, but it just seems like guys are playing off each other better and or offense is running much more smoothly.”

Duke was just as good defensively against BC (12-15, 4-10), especially on the Eagles’ freshman stars Hanlan and Rahon.

The pair, which came into the game as the first- and fifth-leading rookie scorers in the ACC, combined to go just 6 of 18 from the floor with seven turnovers. They also got an education on what can happen when a top team puts its mind to playing its best at the right time of the year.

“They have an attitude,” Donahue said of the Blue Devils. “They posted up hard, they guarded hard. They play like winning teams do.”

And the scary part is they still have the potential to get even better with Kelly’s imminent return.

Though Miami still sits in the driver’s seat when it comes to the ACC’s regular season title and the No. 1 seed that goes with it. Duke appears ready to state its case as the team to beat once the league convenes in Greensboro to play for the championship most people remember two weeks from now.